


With Russia from Love

by CheethamCouldNever



Category: Alexander Hamilton - Ron Chernow
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, Everyone is awful, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:00:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28812327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheethamCouldNever/pseuds/CheethamCouldNever
Summary: Russian reality AU where Burr is a lawyer who hates his job, Hamilton gets enormous pleasure in driving judges hogshit insane making them sit in court since 9 am till 9 pm. They have no money, 5 credits, small flat in hrushevka and emotional burnout
Relationships: Aaron Burr/Alexander Hamilton
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	With Russia from Love

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I could have change their names to russian equivalents but it would be a mess so just let it be  
> 2\. Playlist with atmosphere of sheer desperation: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6TunEZzNEmGmdjlhFkCJWW?si=5MOkb07iSFW4aMYLLPD8Yg  
> 3\. If some characters don’t wear mask it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t

“I fucking hate state cases.”

Aaron took his eyes of the laptop glancing on his partner briefly before returning to his work. “Hello to you too.”

There was a loud fuss from the corridor and the small man appeared in the kitchen rustling with packages. He put all of it on the small table near the sink accidentally dropping some of products out and huffing loudly. “I was dealing with this idiot for 5 fucking hours.”

Aaron once again looked at document he was preparing for next case debating his options and ended up downloading template from the website. “And? It's less than always”. He checked file and started changing data in it.

“I had to explain to judge why my client should be declared _Tsarina of the sea_ , Aaron. _Tsarina of the sea_ ,” Alex explained slowly like he was talking with a toddler. He stuffed grocery into the fridge closing the door with a loud bang. “She said sea inhabitants don't mind. Do I look like I wanna deal with schizophrenics? Un-fucking-believable. And I should act like I have a semblance of respect for– you aren't listening aren't you?”

“Mghm”

The skill of zoning out during his partner's rants turned out to be a very useful and Burr was extremely proud owner of one after years of being in this relationship. It's not like Alexander needs his input anyway.

Man visibly flinched behind his back, turning around and making yourself a cup of tea. It was very light since they used this tea bag four times already but it’s still a tea so it counts. Maybe a spoon of jam could make it better but they are out of it for a week. He’ll totally buy it the second Pyaterochka will put it on sail.

It’s quite in the room except moderate roaring of the fridge and soft clicking under Aaron's fingers. If he thinks about it it’s the first time in a few days he saw him working. Currently Burr prefers to work at nights and Alex still feels he isn’t necessary working during this time too paying much more attention to watching some garbage or reading some garbage in the living room confusing their cat Marusya with his sleeping shedule (not that Alex sleeps much more to be honest but at least he tries to spend his free time with his asshole partner who clearly doesn’t appreciate effort at all).

Deciding he had enough of this silence he put down cup and leaned over Burr taking a look at the screen and frowning a little at it. He definetly should buy a pair of glasses as soon as possible but they have been saving money for new washing machine for a few months so it can wait some more.

“Oh, that’s terrible. Don’t tell me you have written it I’ll die of embarrassment”

“Clearly I haven’t”

“Thank fuck I was close to collapsing on the floor”

“We don’t have money for it so you better don’t,” Aaron chuckled softly touching his temple briefly. He anticipated impending migraine. “Besides it’s not _that_ bad”

“Is it wrong spelled ‘agreement’?...”

“Don’t you have anything better to do, Alexander?” he can guess his answer without looking at him. There is no chance to escape if Alex feels he was neglected for far too long.

“Mm I have a few options in mind but,” he closes his arms around another man's neck lightly turning his head and touching a bit dry lips with his finger. “It requires your close attention. Would you mind to offer me a helping hand?”

“No pun intended I assume” and Aaron is smiling, involuntary, feeling warm wave going through his body from the way Alex is looking at him with undisguist thirst. This is nice feeling, refreshing. He wouldn't mind to feel this way more often.

“Of course how could you think about me this way?”

His partner opens his eyes in a mock offence and Burr has nothing else to do except close his laptop without second glance and kiss this sweet mouth. He almost feels whole again.

***

Sharp sound cut through the silence of the room. Right after it there was a growl, mixed with quite swearing and Burr sat on the edge of the bed blinking rapidly. He turned alarm off and closed eyes for a few minutes, breathing slowly and loudly. _Come on it’s time, you need to go, up, up_. He took last look at Alexander’s sleeping form and closed the door with a soft click.

He can have his morning 15 minutes in a hot shower so he better use it if he wants to get warm at least a bit. Aaron always anticipates approach of the winter since their apartment always stays cold no matter the season. They tried to fix it once through state service just to hear their house too old and it’s impossible to make it better without replacing pipes in the whole house. So yeah, this project was dropped pretty fast. It is already bad enough and God knows how long they will have to wait for administration to turn the heat up in the town.

He stays under warm water for some time, desperatly trying to wake up and failing miserably. They put magnet on hot water meter a year ago and it was their best idea in a while since they spend most of the time in a bathroom during the winter. And no needles waste of money. Smart choice. Illegal but practical one.

Burr had to go out of the bath eventually, hastily covering yourself in a home clothes, and put teapot on the gas oven. He rustled in a cupboard for a few moments, finally finding a package of cat food and putting it in a small bowl near the table. After a few seconds of shaking it a fat ginger cat appeared from the corridor slawly running toward her owner.

“At least you slept well,” Aaron put his hand on Marusya's head patting her lightly and shoved a bowl before her, scratching behind her ear. “Good girl… Bon appetite”

Leaving her to eat in peace he brewed two cups of coffee and sit behind the table taking his phone and opening news. It was an old habbit he doesn’t like to encourage but which he encourages anyway.

To be frankly it was bad for his health but he couldn’t help himself.

**_‘In India after gang rape died two girls which caused mass protests and detentions’_ **

**_‘More than 10 thousand people was diagnosed Covid-19 positive yesterday. It’s the first time since May’_ **

**_‘Another protest action started in the capitol of Belarus’_ **

**_‘An environmental disaster has occurred in Kamchatka’_ **

****

“FUCK,” Burr blinked and looked in the direction of the noise, gears in his head turning fast. “You forgot to wake me up!”

Ouch.

There was a loud steps in the bedroom and Alex - half dressed already - stormed into the kitchen almost tripping over the cat who screamed and jumped on the other side in panic.

“Sorry. At least I made you coffee” he pushed at the cup moving it in Hamilton’s direction.

Alexander mumbled unintelligible taking his coffee and makimg a first sip. He closed his eyes on a moment, smiling just a bit, and ruffled his hair. “Thanks,” Hamilton put his cup away resuming tying a tie and moved his head in the direction of his partner's phone. “Something I should know?”

Aaron took a moment watching at a photo of dead water inhabitants and shook his head putting phone on the table. “Nope”. He would never hear the end of it.

“Good.” man noded and swore at his unruly fingers starting redoing the tie once more.

Burr was watching his unsuccessful efforts for a few minutes before sighed and got up, coming closer to his lover. “Leave it to me,” he took the tie out of his hands straightening it out and turned it around his neck. “Sometimes I wonder how you have lived for so long you kinda a mess”.

“Wasn't you the one who once tried to talk with a straneger about how sexy two women were just for them to turned out to be his wife and daughter? ”

“Irrelevant to the case” Burr would really like to get rid of this memory. It was an embarrassing one for sure and he was foolish enough to tell Alex about it. He cherishes his laughter greatly but not when the man laughs at him. Aaron made one last move tightening tie a bit harder than it needed and shaked invisible dust from Alexander. “Done. Now I won't be ashamed that my partner will look sloppy at court. ”

“Wow so many compliments in one go, you'll spoil me.”

Aaron chuckled, shaking his head and let Hamilton go, taking his place at the table. “Too late. Now show me some magic and disappear, you, ” he looked at the screen of his phone, grinning a bit. “Ten minutes late to your bus already.”

“Shit.. oh dear god, why are you have to do this to me of all people? ” at this Hamilton hurriedly ran toward the living room probably grubbing his laptop and papers and sprinted towards the door, barely bothering to take his coat.

The last thing he heard was short but clear “asshole” before he was left alone.

Indeed he was.

Unlike Alexander, Burr took his time. He finished his coffee while reading all bad news he could have find, brushed teeth again and chose one of his nice suits he bought a few years ago, then changed it to better one. All of it to delay the moment of leaving the flat. Luckily he barely had something to do at work. To be honest man would wait even more but he ran out of excuses very fast.

Well, maybe he has one more.

Already out of house, Burr stopped, taking cigarette out of coat's pocket, and, pulling the mask under his chin, held it between his teeth. He was trying to find a lighter, he was sure he had it somewhere here when his gaze settled on middle-aged woman. She was sitting on her knees near flowerbed digging out newly planted by administration flowers. It seemed like she felt his gaze cause she looked up. She stared at him. He stared at her still holding cigarette in his mouth.

After a few more seconds woman finally rose up, cleaning her knees briefly and left taking a package with some flowers with her. Something tells him she'll return after he's gone and will finish her job. Well, it definitely isn't the first time something like this happening. What did this boy say in this old cartoon? 'I'm not greedy I'm thrifty'? Yeah, something like that.

Finally finding a lighter, Aaron took a few steps from the entrance to the house and standing under the sign 'no smoking' lightened a cigarette. It's no way to start a day.

***

Under the fear of being late Hamilton was obliged to take a cab. Aaron will scold him for that later but jokes on him it was completely his fault he had to act in such a hurry. Besides he himself bought unripe pineapple just a week ago so it’s fair enough that he can have something nice too.

_Their budget on the way to disappear but still._

In this way, he appeared at the court five minutes before the beginning, hastily checking all the documents in his bag when he spotted familiar figure on the bench near the entrance. He didn’t bother to come closer first and started calling him while still being at some distance. “Bobby! Hey, Bobby! I was certain Michael is gonna be prosecutor in this one”

“He wasn't very lucky, got COVID a few days ago. I had to do some arrangements really fast” man shaked his head lightly, standing up from the seat, and held out a hand.

Alexander looked at it briefly before arching an eyebrow at him. “Bobby,” he pointed at his mask and made a small circle with his finger.

“Oh, right. Sorry” he quickly lowered his hand, touching his thinning hair instead. “Reflex memory. We are not supposed to talk do you know it, right?”

“Never stopped us before tho. Seriously, don't act like anyone here gives any single fuck about it, you are literally neighbour of judge Ponomarenko,” he chucked remembering this time, when he stopped by Troup's house and saw grumpy minister of justice in the backyard with a glass of wine. It was clear who was more awkward about it. “Better tell me how is Jannet. I haven't seen your better half for ages. She haven't divorced you yet, haven't she?”

“No, she's perfectly fine. Caught a hard cold recently, scared all of us to death. My poor mother almost got a heart attack, refused to leave us for a few weeks for her own good,” Troup sighed heavily, nervously fixing cuffs of the button down. “She had all the symptoms, we was going to send her to hospital but we test was negative so it's gonna be fair to say we were lucky. Now she's busy with sanitizing the whole house,” he stopped for a second remembering something and definetly smiling under the mask. “It smells like aciton.”

“It sounds good, Bob. Thank God, you all are okay just have been frightened a bit,” and Hamilton really means it, he has no idea what a mess Troup would be if he'd lose his wife. And he really doesn't like to think what would have been with their kids. “But why didn't you call me? You know how well I get along with people.”

Bobby, truly kind soul, didn't comment on this statement.

“I assumed you were pretty much busy yourself. Talking about busy, how is Aaron by the way?”

Alexander just shrugged on it, shifting the bag from one hand to another. How is Aaron. Good question. _How is Aaron indeed?_ “How can he be? You know Burr as much as I do. Moody, aloof, completely unreliable - I barely made it in time because of him today – rude.. So not much changed really.”

Troup frowned a little, looking directly at Alex. “That's… doesn't sound like Aaron at all. Are you sure everything is okay?”

And God he actually looks concerned. That's won't do.

“Stop it. Really, Bobby, you are overreacting as usual. Maybe he just needs to go on vacation. Maybe we could drive to the sea in early spring, I don't know, it's not like we can't wait for the summer.” They _have_ to wait for the summer. Troup doesn't need to know that they barely can save some money for necessary stuff. Of course they can postpone buying the washing machine but in perspective it's gonna be more expensive and harmful for them than waiting for a bit. It's not like Burr is dying or something.

“…Time.”

“What? Repeat again, please ”

Troup chuckled softly, nodding toward the entrance of the court. “You zoned out again. I said it's time. Secretary just called for us, you probably missed it too. Shall we?”

***

“Defendant has a right to know what he is accused of, get a copy of a criminal order, object to a charge, testify against a prosecution or refuse to testify at all, present evidence…”

Courtroom was small and almost empty except for major players and a few relatives of his client. Of course, all of them crowded together near him. Alexander habitually blocked out excess noise and was looking at his folder, clearly not seeing it. This case was completely hopeless and there was nothing he could say to stop conviction. Everything was clear as a day. This woman, Kate, was plainly guilty. Her husband and she were placing small packets of hashish in town, selling it through the messenger. They all had information and photos from her phone, they had witnesses, operatives who organized the surveillance and detention. He could make her punishment a little smaller but not much more.

So yeah, he wasn’t really paying attention. He was more concerned with electricity bills, that to be paid before Monday, they couldn’t be left without it again (they were out of candles after the last time and he actually has a job to do). Maybe they can borrow some from Timothy but this is at least unlikely, Aaron hates asking his uncle for help. _‘I don’t need his money’._ Yeah, because this is so much better.

“Mister Hamilton”

Alexander flinched sharply, looking up at judge Ponomarenko, who was watching him knowingly, waiting for him to start something unwanted. Good. Serves him well for being babble brain.

“Do you understand the rights explained to you?”

Small man just shrugged, looking at judge confused and innocently like a little shit he was. “You know I actually don’t. Could you explain them to me?”

Silence lasted for a few moments before Ponomarenko answered, straightening his back. “Are you a lawyer, mister Hamilton?”

“You can say it, Your Honour”

“So you should know them all perfectly well. I assume we can freely move on then. Prosecution may read out the charges”

On that Troup rose from his seat, took his papers from the table and read with calm, steady voice. “Prosecution charges Katherine Koroleva with sale of drugs committed by a group of people by prior conspiracy in a considerable quantity.”

“Does defense has any objections?”

Hamilton smiled shortly, standing up again, and looked judge dead in the eyes. “My client understands charges against him and completely disagrees with them”

No one growled but Alex knows that it was implied. At least he’ll have his fun.

***

Hamilton was almost drooling at his seat. He didn’t need to hear it again, he did his homework, thanks very much. The whole interrogation of the defendant part was useless to him, so he refused to question his client, more interested in witnesses that came next. They were mostly people who were present during the operation of the task force so they were a great fun for him.

“So, missis Orlova, where were you during operation?”

“We were in a car, when man, who was with this woman, bent over the tree and put something near roots”

“I see. So you’ve seen the whole scene clear?”

“Yes, I’ve seen it clear enough”

Alexander nodded, clearly cooperative, like he had no doubt in it. “How far do you think you were from this ill-fated tree?”

“Ghm, I don’t know,” woman frowned a bit, fixing her glasses. “Near 7 meters, I think”

“And you’ve seen everything clear?”

“Yes, I have”

“I see. Defence has no more questions.” At least till he’ll have opportunity to question her husband.

Man in question said basically the same as his wife with occasional missteps, small but the one that still matters. It’s understandable that they forgot some stuff from the operation since there was a long period of time before they were sent subpoenas. Really, he understands. As a human being. Not as a lawyer, of course.

“Have you seen how defendant put something on the ground?”

Orlov started answering but suddenly stopped mid sentence, pulling the mask off his face and coughing before putting it on again. Everything got very quiet for a second, every pair of eyes in the room staring at the guy.

“Pardon me but you did this for what exactly?” Alexander arched his eyebrow, evidently getting annoyed.

“What was I supposed to do? I had to cough” apparently man was genuinely offended by restriction of his rights.

“Yeah, this is like the whole point. You have a mask so you wouldn’t spread your germs to everyone else, man. I’m surprised you lived so l–”

“That’s enough, mister Hamilton,” judge finally intervened, stopping yelling contest. “Mister Orlov, answer the question, please”

“It was a man who put it down, she was taking a photo of it near him” the guy was obviously relaxed, calm and completely unbothered.

“Have you seen what it was?”

“No, not really, but we knew why we were here, we knew they were spreading drugs. I saw how he put it on the ground and started doing something in the grass”

“Mm. So task force staff instructed you on the operation?”

“Yeah”

“I see. Just to clarify, how far do you think you were from the car? You can say approximately, it’s fine”

“I’m not good with measurements... let me think. Maybe it was a distance like the width of this room” Orlov rubbed his forehead, visibly puzzled.

“And what is the width of this room?”

“12 metres maybe”

“I see,” Alexander smiled openly, clearly enjoying himself, and turned towards secretary of the trial. “I hope everything that were said by this gentleman will be included in the protocol”.

Of course everything ended up how it was supposed to end. He asked for a reduction of the possible term, basing it on the fact, that she was a mother of a little child. The fact that the said child was living with his grandmother he didn’t mention. Orlova got her 8 years. All things considered, everybody were happy in the end. Except Troup, maybe.

Troup looked so damn tired the whole time.

“I really hate to be in one courtroom with you, Alex, just so you know”

“Yeah, you told me before, Bobby”

***

Aaron got home earlier this day. He didn’t exactly asked his boss about it, but since he had no work to do and no one checked them often he could get some break as well. The flat was drown in a gentle warm light from the street that made this place look a bit better. He got of his coat lazily, tugged his mask off and automatically washed his hands. On a second Burr thought he heard something, some quite, barely distinguishable noise but he didn't find any sign of it so he decided to ignore it and just kept going through his day. God, help them if it's cockroaches again. He keeps finding their dead bodies from time to time.

Dropping his blazer on kitchen’s chair, Aaron took some eggs from the fridge and put them on the table, while tugging old iron pan from the shelf. Some scrambled eggs with buckwheat would be nice. Simple and fast enough. Not so nice for Alexander’s stomach, it doesn’t do well with eggs and so much oil, frankly speaking. Frankly speaking, there were much more products his stomach didn’t like than it liked but it wasn’t something they could fix with their budget. So scrambled eggs, it is.

Burr warmed up pan and put some eggs on, sitting at the table and taking his phone out of the pocket. He checked his mail once in case he got a message from his boss but this time he was weirdly lucky. Or Lena covered his ass once again. In any case he was safe for now.

He checked if eggs were okay and then finally opened some dumb arcada on his phone, going to pass some time before dinner will be ready… And there’s that noise again, this time louder and clearer. Aaron growled loudly, rubbing his forehead annoyed, and stood up, heading towards the bathroom.

At the first site everything were absolutely fine. Small room was illuminated by one small lamp under the low ceiling, single drops was coming off the sink faucet.. no, the problem was with a small wall cabinet that was hiding pipes. Under its door flowed out jets of water. Burr bend over the bath, hurriedly opening cabinet and seeing big droplets of water falling from the frame.

Swearing quietly, man basically shoved his head inside of the cabinet, looking over the pipes trying to find a place from where the water were coming but there was no clear signs of leak points. So he looked up then and saw that water was going from the flat above them, there was a huge dark water stain on concrete.

“Shit. Shit shit shit”

While he was standing here jets of water got stronger and some of them successfully dripped down his neck under the collar. Shit. This was because of the heating he was sure of it. Pipes were too old to handle annual heating supply and its shutting down. Of course pipe break had to appear on their side of the house. As fucking usual.

Leaving the cabinet for a few moments, Aaron opened small cabinet under the old enameled bath, taking red pelvis under it, and put it under the jet. Since it wasn’t as much effective as he hoped he just shoved some rags around it, cleaning wet floor too. He took his phone out and after a few second fields dialed the public service’s phone.

“ _Yeah, hello. My neighbours are flooding me, I need someone to check on them. I’m.. yeah, I’ll check if they are home anyway, of course. Panfilova street, house 54, first entrance. I’m on the third floor, flat 9. Yeah, thanks, I’ll wait._ Fuck.”

After it Burr had to make a sprint toward his neighbours. First he went to the one above them without any real hope since he was sure he haven’t seen young woman from here for a few weeks. So it’s gonna be a problem then.

Next he went to the neighbours below but they haven’t return from work yet cause he heard only their dog’s barking behind the door. So as a strong independent man he was he made one stop here to lean against a wall and knock his head against it. It just had to happen when _he_ is at home. Such a thing has never happened with Hamilton somehow and it’s his stupid flat. Gosh, social housing sucks ass.

He wasn’t rushing home since there was nothing he could do now except maybe leave a sticky note for the neighbours with his phone to make it easier. Not that he wanted to do it much, Alex and him tried not to deal with this people since they plainly showed what they thought about this kind of relationships. Since that one time he had to drag Alexander from one of them after unlucky bastard said something about his kids visit, it was they main goal. Well, they’ve lost.

He was just going to take notes and a pen and go through this part of the plan when he entered apartment and was hit by a strong burning scent, coming from the kitchen.

“FUCK” Burr rushed in the kitchen, hastily grabbing the handle of the pan, without any second thought. The first second he touched it he yelped in pain and jerked his hand off, shaking it in the air. Still holding his hand near his chest, man picked towel from the table and finally took the pan from the fire, shoving it in the sink and turning the gas off.

It took a few long minutes for him to calm down a bit. He was standing near the table, resting against it and shaking lightly. When Burr finally could have look at his injured hand it wasn’t a pretty picture. It was red and a bit swollen and he could see a few place where small blisters started forming. With this he won’t be able to work for a week at best.

“Just great”

He stood up slowly trying not to touch anything with his hand and got back in bathroom with a saucepan. Something told him they gonna be out of water for a few days.

***

“Remember my words, one day poor Troup’ll stop talking with both of us. Probably because I’ll piss him off again and you are obviously gonna be on my side so we need to start searching for a new frie–“ Alexander stoped in corridor which were cluttered with different bowls, cups, pans and with other stuff that weird to see in your corridor at 6 pm. All of them were filled with water.

“Okay, what the hell?”

He carefully bypassed all of it, trying to walk along the wall, and looked into the bathroom where his partner was sitting on the floor watching drops of water falling in the pelvis. Before this moment this one was used specifically for hangovers.

“I have two news, the good one and the bad one. The good news is we have a heating. The bad one is that one of the pipes was broken in process and since our neighbour from above is on vacation, social service workers had to shut off the water. So the whole corner of the house is without it for some time. I figured I should save as much of it as possible.” Aaron nodded his head in the direction of the corridor, without standing up from the floor.

Alexander frowned slightly looking from Burr to pipes, then to the floor and then to Burr again. “And the smell is?..”

“Our dinner”

“I see”

This is why they don’t buy nice stuff.

He closed the distance between them, sitting on the floor near other man, so their knees were almost bumping, and sighed loudly, turning his head towards him. “Let me see”

Burr, more cooperative than ever, held out his hand that was shaking slightly and was covered with small white bubbles. Hamilton huffed, expression hard, and touched it, inspecting attentively. “You are such a disaster I swear… I forbid you touch anything in the kitchen”

“This is the most boring way to commit suicide you could’ve come up with”

“Regardless,” Alex opened cabinet under the sink and took from it a small box with a Red Cross on it. “Let’s see..Mghm, no, no, not that’s one… Ha!” He exclaimed shortly, pulling out small packaging of ointment. “This one will do just fine.” Right after it he took last package of bandages out of the box and closed it, moving closer to his partner.

“Give me your hand” And he hold out his arm impatiently, raising an eyebrow.

Burr just sighed tiredly and let him do whatever the man thought was necessary. He just wanted to spend some time in peace. Eat something nice, watch tv in a good company, bickering about politics… not nursing his hand that’s for sure.

Alexander slowly rubbed some of yellow ointment into the injured skin, trying to touch it as little as possible, drawing circles at his palm, and then as careful as before turned bandage around it, ineptly tying it near man’s wrist. The last he did was touching his knuckles briefly with his lips. “Such a dumb potato”

Aaron chuckled softly, shaking his head without looking at Hamilton, like he couldn’t believe he said it. What an ridiculous little man.

***

The nomad raid began when Alexander was boiling some chicken for them, political show playing on tv as the background noise. It was one of these that Aaron called screaming match (he wasn’t wrong, no, not really) and Alex appreciated a lot. He sent Burr to get some rest half an hour ago since the man was currently completely useless with his hand and crippling melancholy. So nobody was here to listen for his mumbling.

‘What is happening in Minsk now is completely unacceptable and ruinous to the nation. What are they gonna get from this protests? They’ll just ruin the country that was in pretty good condition. People in Belarus forgot how well it went on Ukraine”

“ ** _Ukraine my ass_** , god here we go again,” Alex growled, putting some salt in the pan when there appeared knocking at the door. “One second, god, don’t break the door”

He cleaned his hands with a towel, dimmed the fire a little, and came to the door, pulling his mask on and opening door wide opened. No instinct of self preservation, that was pretty much clear.

There was a small skinny man behind the door, with his palms on his hips, in a stained grey shirt that was hanging on him like a rag. “Hello. You flooded us.”

“My condolences. You can submit all your complaints to the woman that lives above us, she flooded us too. She’s on vacation so we’ll have to wait till guys from social service will have opportunity to enter her flat”

Man frowned a bit, touching his face. “And how long this will take?”

“How am I supposed to know? Pray it will end before we all will get hot and dirty.” He barely suppressed a laugh looking at man’s face. Just a small thing to do but so pleasant.

The next few neighbours were from flats that were lower and all of them were more curious about absence of the water than flooding itself. To tell the truth Alex got tired after the second one.

His infamous patience died when the neighbour from the fifth floor appeared at their door, clearly exasperated. She was the only one who got out of the whole flooding situation unharmed and understanding from her could not be expected.

“I was told you are the one responsible for the water cutoff.” This was her first line, no niceties.

“Something like that, yeah. Could you hurry up, please, I have some stuff to do.”

“Do you know when the water will be back?”

“If you talked with other neighbours then you should know that I don’t know. Everything will be fixed when the owner of the flat will be back in town. Till then we all have to wait.”

“But we need water.”

“Aren’t we all are? I can do nothing about it. I don’t keep in touch with this woman”

She looked him over from head to toe with clear disgust in it and spotted something that sounded like ‘of course you don’t care, should have expected something like this from people like–’.

“I’m sorry, I think you keep forgetting that it was my partner who called in social service to fix the problem. He left notes for neighbours, he prevented what could have resulted in more serious harm to all of us. So maybe, just maybe, you’ll pull you head out of your ass and think once in your miserable life.

She was opening her mouth for response when Alex made the smartest decision in this situation. He closed the door on her. And maybe he also made resolution to stop opening it at all.

“Who was it?” Aaron called from the bedroom, probably waking up finally.

“No one important,” Hamilton answered, entering the room. He climbed in the bed near his partner and squeezed his swollen hand between his palms lightly. Alexander chewed on his bottom lip for a bit, thinking, before he looked up at Aaron with slightly puzzled expression. “And how much freaking water we need for now?”

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Every old hrushevka looks like this https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14x9hjKhgVwd_GoQfVvNwyVaOP16frUjX  
> 2\. Pyaterochka is a complex of grocery stores in Russia with more or less bearable prices  
> 3\. Heating is turned off near May every spring. It is returned only in autumn, around October. Yes, we all hate it.


End file.
